5 Stages of an effective resume writing journey!
Regardless of how professional you are or how good at your job you are, you’ve actually just been through a few resume writing stages in your life. That means you may be out of touch with recent trends or applicant screening tools.
Here are a few current (and timeless) tips for writing resumes:
· Focus — Know what you want to do and go for it. Why would you close your eyes and shoot aimlessly at a shooting range in the hopes of hitting a bullseye in your career search? Replace the old resume’s cliched, wordy introduction with a personalized tag line or factual assertion. For example, “CPA Applicant pursuing an Entry Level/Internship Position in Tax.” Anything on your resume Help from now on should be geared toward that goal.
· Keywords! Know them, use them, love them — If you know what job title you want, go to your favorite job board and look for those openings. For example, if you wish to work in human resources, read at least 20 job postings and make a list of phrases and keywords that appear often. Many of these things are possible: communication, leadership skills, coordination, staff relations, and HRIS or HRMS (Human Resource Information System/Management Systems). The terms should be used if they appear regularly in the resume. These keywords are crucial for navigating the Applicant Tracking System, which would be the first hurdle.
· Understand Applicant Tracking Systems — An applicant tracking system’s (ATS) primary aim is to search resumes for applicants that match the hiring manager’s keywords. Sadly, identifying and using keywords is just half of the fight. If the formatting is too complex, any ATS app won’t be able to read all of your awesome talents. Since there are over 220 different programs online, it’s difficult to guess what would function consistently, but we do know a few tricks. Don’t use fancy fonts or bullets, and don’t use graphics, pictures, text boxes, columns, or headers/footers. Save your creative resume for job fairs and use the ATS-friendly resume to apply for jobs online.
· Looks Matter — Congratulations on getting through the first stumbling block in getting others to look at your resume. You just have five seconds to capture their attention right now. Whether they don’t see vital things (dates, schooling, related skills), or if it’s hard to understand, cluttered, or just plain boring, they’ll move. Ascertain that the text is concise and useful (use dollars, numbers, and percentages whenever possible). Keep it short and sweet. Bullets make comprehension better than paragraphs. Think scan-ability, when only a small percentage of people read resumes.
· Proofread for perfection — It’s worth reading because you’ve already read it. If you want to show an interviewer that you’re “information-driven,” but your resume is full of discrepancies and flaws, you won’t get too far. When you spend a lot of time on content, it’s easy to overlook the finer points (which you should). Inconsistencies in data forms, bullet point intervals (use them or don’t, just stick with it), verb tense (past tense for old work, present tense for new jobs), fonts, numbers (spell out numbers under ten, use numerals for numbers ten and up), and text spacing are often common errors.
Need more insights on the same? Get in touch with a resume builder.
